| Category | Template | Form |
|---|---|---|
| Text | Text | Text |
| Author | Author | Author |
| Collection | Collection | Collection |
| Keywords | Keywords | Keywords |
| Subpage | Subpage | Subpage |
| Template | Form |
|---|---|
| BrowseTexts | BrowseTexts |
| BrowseAuthors | BrowseAuthors |
| BrowseLetters | BrowseLetters |
Template:GalleryAuthorsPreviewSmall
Special pages :
Letter to Friedrich Engels, November 18, 1868
| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 18 November 1868 |
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43
To Engels in Manchester
London, 18 November[1] 1868
Dear Fred,
The landlord (unfortunately he is living pro tempore[2] in London), wrote me the enclosed letter some time ago. Yesterday he called, but was not, of course, admitted, since I was allegedly absent. The devil of it is that, because of the OVEREND AFFAIR,[3] this fellow lives on his house rents; in addition, he will not accept bills of exchange. At other times the PRESSURE for the house has never been so IMMEDIATE, since I only owe him for 1 QUARTER. Lessner, too, is kicking me for THE REMAINDER OF MY DEBT, his wife is DESPERATELY SICK.
GENERALLY the SITUATION is bad.
Yesterday evening, on the CENTRAL COUNCIL[4] the ENGLISH TOO LATE but UNANIMOUSLY acknowledged that I h a d forecast literally for them, the, for me, HIGHLY AMUSING UPSHOT of the elections, with a criticism of the incorrect policy of the REFORM-LEAGUE.[5] The present HOUSE is the worst since the election under Pam’s[6] command. The LONG PURSES have never had such an exclusive preponderance. E. Jones had boasted in too Lassallean a manner. At the last Sunday meeting of his congregation in CLEVELAND HALL, there was displayed a placard TO THIS EFFECT: FAREWELL TO THE GREAT ICONOCLAST, THE PEOPLES REDEEMER. LONG LlVE TO MR BRADLAUGH, THE DREAD NAUGHT OF ST STEPHEN’S![7]
In France things look very serious, according to Lafargue’s last letters too. The government wants to force the lads on to the streets so that chassepot[8] and RIFLED CANNON may then laisser ‘faire merveille’[9]! Can you see any CHANCE of successful street conflicts? Defection of the army without a previous thrashing appears to me scarcely credible.
Biichner’s clumsy work[10] is of interest to me in as much as it quotes most of the German research in the field of Darwinism — Prof. Jäger (Vienna) and Prof. Haeckel. According to them, the cell has been abandoned as the primaeval form; instead a formless but contractile particle of albumen is taken as STARTING POINT. This hypothesis was later confirmed by the discoveries in Canada (later also in Bavaria and SOME OTHER PLACES). The primaeval form must naturally be traced down to the point at which it may be produced chemically. And it appears that the way to this point has been found.
The conscientiousness with which Büchner has acquainted himself with the English stuff is also shown by the fact that he classifies Owen as one of Darwin’s supporters.
Borkheim’s letter to you,[11] which you sent me, I had the pleasure to have read to me for A SECOND TIME by him in person. This nincompoop now accuses Eichhoff of being a ‘BUSYBODY’(!) and of ‘writing long letters’. What self-knowledge!
Apropos the Irish elections, the only interesting POINT is Dungarvan, where Burry is presenting himself under the protection of the defector O’Donovan. (Ditto under the protection of the priest.) There is a GENERAL CRY against him amongst the Irish Nationalists since this blackguard, as government prosecutor during the first trial of the Fenians in Dublin, hurled such slanders (à la Constitutionnel against the June insurgents)[12] that even the London papers gave him a wigging.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
I believe Nincompoop[13] has gone to Bordeaux! Such a business trip is certainly necessary to cool his brain fever.
- ↑ In the original erroneously 18 October.
- ↑ for the time being
- ↑ A reference to the bankruptcy of Overend, Gurney and Company, a major British bank. It financially ruined a large number of depositors. The matter was brought to court; the trial ended in December 1869 with the acquittal of the company directors.
- ↑ Marx is referring to the General Council of the First International which, up to the end of 1866, was usually referred to as the Central Council.
- ↑ The Reform League was founded in London in the spring of 1865 on the initiative and with the direct participation of the International's General Council as a political centre of the mass movement for the second election reform. The League’s leading bodies—the Council and Executive Committee— included the General Council members, mainly trade-union leaders. The League’s programme was drafted under the influence of Marx, who called upon the working-classes to pursue their policy independently of bourgeois parties. Unlike these parties, which confined their demands to household suffrage, the League advanced the demand for manhood suffrage. This revived Chartist slogan (see Note 201) evoked a sympathetic response among the working class and won the League the support of the trade unions, hitherto indifferent to politics. The League had branches in all major industrial towns and counties. However, the vacillations of the bourgeois radicals in its leadership, and the conciliation of the trade union leaders prevented the League from following the line chartered by the General Council. The British bourgeoisie succeeded in splitting the movement, and a moderate reform was carried out in 1867 which granted franchise only to the petty bourgeoisie and the upper layer of the working class.
- ↑ Palmerston's
- ↑ In St. Stephen's Chapel, where the House of Commons sat between 1547 and 1834. Later, came to designate the House of Commons of the British Parliament.
- ↑ Chassepot—a needle-gun invented in 1866 by a French worker and named after him; the French army was supplied with this type of weapon in 1866-74.
- ↑ work miracles
- ↑ L. Büchner, Sechs Vorlesungen über die Darwinsche Theorie von der Verwandlung der Arten ...
- ↑ See Letter to Karl Marx, November 10, 1868
- ↑ Marx exposed the slanderous attacks of the French bourgeois newspaper Le Constitutionnel against the Paris workers, participants in the June 1848 uprising, in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (see The Kolnische Zeitung on the June Revolution and The Reforme on the June Insurrection).
- ↑ Borkheim